Me, I'm rather an extreme example of a role-player.
Insofar, as I try to avoid combat because I don't like it much.
Okay, a fight every now and then - there's nothing too bad with it.
But a game which defines quest-solving only by combat, like BG did in most cases, and with is carried out to an
extreme (
nothing but battle !) in Sacred and in Blizzard's D2, is not my case.
One of several reasons I prefer non-combat over combat is that the non-combat means of solving are mostly the more difficult ones.
You have to plan.
You have to plan around several corners, maybe.
From an intellectual point of view, non-combat behaviour is more challenging - especually if the reputation thingy is quite far evolved. If people react to what I do, then it defenitively requires more thinking from my side to play out a character so that people (read: NPCs) are really allowing me to solve a quest via for example "social skills".
An example for this is the
quest with the hidden treasure in the park. You get this quest only with a certain reputation. And in order to receive this reputation, you must plan quite far into the future.
This is kind of "choices", too.
Hack & slay isn't intellectually stimulating at all to me. It just needs ... Well, hack & slay.
The only planning - thus using the brain - is in D2, for example, in planning what kind of eqipment do I need in order to defeat the next major boss. In principle, this is simple calculation of pros and cons of let's say an armor plate piece.
Another point in planning of D2 is in into which
direction I shall develop my character.
Thus arose the term of what I know in German language as "Verskillen", I don't know what's the English word for that.
It just means picking the wrong set of skills / taking emphasis on the wrong set of skills.
In a rather free-play RPG, this shouldn't happen, at least this is my opinion. The verskilling of characters means kind of an limitation: You can use the wrong way, the wrong road.
In a free-form RPG, imho all ways should be open.
But that's just my opinion.
To sum it up: Hack & Slay is totally nonstimulating to me from an intellectual point of view.
The contrary can be said of PS:T, for example.
Drakensang, to use a current example, is a middle thing. In the Bloodmountains area, there's the choice to suppoprt the group of the God of the Order etc. or to help Witches. The whole gameplay in this area is affected by this.
On the other hand, there are no choices (the money budged seems unfortunately have cut down so many things, some even the devs wanted in) when you steal from someone and get caught if you steal and get *not* caught, there should be no consequences, obvioiusly).
There are a few similar cases to this.
